poetry – Page 31 – Poétique

Mechanics

He was more than just a piston
Brain control seeping in trying to
Creep into his mind what’s the reward
To be eighty years old and prove
“I too can be a hard nose!”
(He exclaimed)
Whoopee.

Life is so condensed fitting
Our parts into smaller and smaller
Shapes and sizes to accommodate
Our lives into finite dimensions we
Float away and around
What brings us back on track?

In the order of all belongings
Tallying before we lay
Beneath the red marbled stone
That reminds everyone who we were
Do they drink tea in our absence?

What is it to be nineteen again
Learning the world before we knew
Anything grasping at love like
We were running out of air
And knowing almost nothing
Except for how to get from
Here to there
Oh and…
How to make out with a pear
I remember having no clue about
How to pick one out the Bosc is
A true delight in which one should
Have a romantic affair
Lips curled around
Delicious juices filling his mouth

But that was college and now
The ground is thirsty again for
Knowledge and experience
Getting out….

He was doing the work to remember
A recompense for painting instead of work

Raised in a jerkwater town
Moving away was like holding ground
In a place where culture was hidden
Until he lifted the lid one thousand
Four hundred and ninety-two miles away

And the incense was different
The smell of the future unlimited to his
Slippery imagination

A train car is running only a foot away
What’s under the hood?

Autrement

Unfortunate rainstorm
Forced us inside for the night
Summer stars were holding onto
Us even in cold winter
Tired of pushing the sled uphill
Treading water upstream
Feeding the endless fish
Deep in the ocean throw me
A lifesaver quick overestimating

Man is there something in my eye?
The world is changing and everyone
Seems a little bit crazy
It used to be you got your drugs
On the street but now you just
Go to the doctors office
Whatever you need under
A different name
That makes it legal

Blindsided by friends that seem well
And suddenly you can’t tell
What’s up from down
He was taught to keep his mouth shut
To observe and hold his tongue
To know the difference between
Right and wrong and to
Mind his manners
Take the trash out
Make the bed

These basic steps kept
His shoulders back and
Firmly placed his head
Neck strong no doubt
Hurt feelings in and out but
Man can I say it again,
Is there something in my eye?

The world is changing and everyone
Seems a little bit crazy
I’m looking around to find
The people who are like warriors
From a time before but even
Those folks appear to be
On their way out
Almost saddened that
This is what they’ve left us with

It’s not your fault

Chirping

Red blanket wrapped around his
Shoulders in the windy air outside
What is culturally okay there
May not fly here so where are we
When we’re both in a different
Part of the world entirely
Multicolored lights together
Chocolate and coconut on my tongue
Half a universe away the stars
Are blurry observing from behind tears
There is a palace in this heart
That is eager for your visit
No timeline or privilege
Easy to know that you’re coming
Difficult to predict when it will be

I took a bicycle with spokes
Full of intentions pinging
And rode it through the house
The hardwood floors were creaking
There was a God standing in the kitchen
And the cat chased me into the yard
Out the back door in between
Two cherry trees stoically unpicked
Rustling the fruit I was urgently
Splashed with the sweet blood from its pulp
On my face like love spent
From the pit hiding in the edible flesh
Rich with delicious possibilities
The stone beating with zest

In that painting a fire burns the canvas and
Linen ashes float flaming cotton into the sky
Orange embers on almost olive pale skin
Tell the truth of frogs hiding in the grass
All chirping with certainty to the cosmos
As a testament to descry our future and beyond

Chastise Me

Knock knock bang bang
We come clanging at your gate
Said the imperial voices
Every astronomical element
Standing at your corners
Unsure if yet to open the door to see

The more that we dug in
The closer we got to the core
It was like saying it’s not you
He didn’t like you because you are
Gentle avid and kind

Several castigates moved into
An empty room to decide the eerie fate
Of what was once an alarmingly
Charming fellow who had been
Bent over a knee or two and upbraided

Tiny drops of water with mirror like
Reflections told the story he couldn’t see
In his obsidian balled future
What to behold the light and dark
In one glance was to be also
Awake and asleep simultaneously

Though there was no excuse for the walls
Or the invisible prison bars that
Castrated the milky fogged portal in a
Breathing space around him
There was also an answer to why
He could feel it peeling away
At his spirit euphemistically speaking in tongues

If they want what you have
But they don’t understand what it is
No one will be able to confiscate it
However certain devices to stretch
The origin out of you might appear

All the solutions for salutary guidance
Hovered overhead while the eclipse
Of his karmic gifts rattled the sky
Like ancient maracas from a colonial
Africa that held the key to forbearing
A doorway to a path that persisted
Not to continue to create contention
By walking towards the obvious
Fateful intersections of demise
Dressed in colorful garlands attracting
Footsteps towards the imperceptible plank
Instead to scatter mythological roses
On the ground in the opposite direction

So he turned around

Resistance

Stubborn body obstinate soul
What happens when we don’t
Want to budge are we resisting
Or listening to our best selves
Frozen feet no need to meet
Someone in a rendezvous
If the destination doesn’t appeal
What’s the point of showing up
For bad dough when there’s
Delicious bread to be had
In some other place on some
Other occasion in the listless abyss

Phones ringing should be unplugged
Or at least turned down so that the
Sound isn’t trying to bait us over and out
Who’s calling? I don’t remember
Making a phone date or even
Giving out my number huh?
Someone has it but when did they get it?
Funny how they always find you…

One might think the goal was isolation
When really the concept is a peaceful moment
He wasn’t trying to get away from humanity
Only to break free from the reality
That there was nowhere to go where
Someone wasn’t anymore
That’s what they said without saying
Anything at all and the tender thing was
Always waiting for the best one
Even though there was no regard for
His feelings before or after
We didn’t have to drag it out thankfully
The right one comes along when it does
Something about letting sleeping dogs lie

Morocco

Tenaciously pulling at the heart
You can hear the echoes of
An unresolved clash
And then the all encompassing
Hammer comes down
Like a steel blanket
Over his head

When the rules start changing
The arrow seems strategically pointed
Always at him even though the intention
Is for everyone it feels very personal
But the boundaries are for everyone

The art of ignoring is a daily practice
Breathe in, breathe out, ignore
Don’t do this, don’t do that, ignore

It’s like there’s a timeline ticking
Just as the months of the seasons
Go round and someone realizes
We haven’t issued any new warrants
In awhile or we haven’t exercised
Our rights to relay innocuous notices
For quite some time let’s annoy them

Meanwhile the neighborhood is
Actually getting worse and the trash
Keeps accumulating but the focus
Hangs on policies and procedures

His intentions turned to assume that none of it
Was for him though the best thing to do
Always seemed to comply that’s why
Writing it out and licking a stamp
Behaved in such a necessary manner

Not like living in Morocco where
Almost no one cared about what he was doing
How to be living, just that you are
How to be breathing, just that you are
Here in America we are free to live
Under someone else’s tirade
Under someone else’s laws
Understanding all the rules
More threatening paperwork

It’s a brigade on the way to ignore
If we wait long enough
Something else will clamber

The pushback is to exist

Absence

We search for meaning in words
The tongue touches the ground
He thinks he understands
Human emotion

Many winds pass into
His mind like answers
To questions he has
Been too afraid to ask

Salt tastes bitter
If the wrong ingredient persists
No one controls the
Rapidity of the equator

Sensory overload is
Fuzzy like the bellies of monkeys

Strings

You use your heart to decide
Not the argumentative brain
My heart math says the most
Meaningful color is blue but
Even mavi is empty if the
Interpretation leaves a blank space
On the vertical line
We’re sliding down
All the way into the
Definition of gravity rock bottom

Lights dangling half broken bulbs

What clarity lives on an
Open counter where the drinks are
Being served but not enjoyed
More questions than answers
I smile at the catechism

Interrogatory harmonium
We wish for light years to become
One trip to the corner market

This will be the last time
Maybe the change is the price we pay

Scoreless

It didn’t really matter after
A few days had passed
He turned the corner and
All the leaves were upside down

One gust of wind was just enough
To perfectly land them this way
Belly up the rest of the night
Must have been quite a sight
But the remaining plants
Weren’t saying anything yet

And then he heard someone holler
beyond the property line,
“In order to survive, we steal and we thieve!”

The texture in the air brought back
Memories of forgetting how to
Wake up regularly as if the
New day was the only thing
That mattered and no one
Knew how to keep score

As before life became like a card game
And we were all tallying our wins
Attempting to excuse our losses
When the best part was just
Experiencing it all by calling
An old friend who understood
Him better than the rest of the world

But he hadn’t had his coffee yet
Because he no longer drank coffee
And thus this made it complicated
To have the first conversation
On any dog walk because momentary
Silence was required to be
His whole self again but this was also new
Like keeping score so the decision
Was necessary to be made

There would be no more adding
There would be no more subtractions
He would only be

Venting

Clamorously to the Gods
When the flames are licking at your feet
You try to get away from the burns
Some times they touch you
And it hurts all up your backside
And you have the marks and the
Healing to do but if you can
Get out of the fire there is no
Need to dwell there venting deeply
As strong as the wind
Your tongue comes out lashing
Around like the fire that burned you
Even if you stay consistent
And you pulsate so exactly to the T
You can still be unnoticeable
You can still be incomplete
How can we be resistant to it
Even in solitude although
You have been told you have
Everything you need
You are learning how to inherit yourself
How much power are we throwing away
Giving up when we release our emotions
To others even screaming silently
And how much power are we
Gaining back in ourselves when we
Let go of the pooling sediment
That weighs like rocks in the gut
All sewn up and dragging around
When the combustible flames of
Untamed whips and chains come calling
To smack you down and around
We find a way to put the ashes out
Walking like a burning bright red ember
To appease the sickening that
Comes after as you process the pain
Of melting internally and you feel
Your heart aching and your bones
Cracking and breaking down you
Stamp out the disdain with your langue
Hot like the fires of underworld
Trying not to taste the soup of conversation
Before it can burn holes in you
You breathe before an altar of trees
Venting to the Gods on your knees